How to Select Multiple Items With Shift-Click

You select things on your computer every day. Bits of text in a document you are writing. Files that need to be moved around. Songs in iTunes that you want to move to a playlist. You can make selecting multiple files faster and easier when you shift-click. You can shift-click on a Mac or shift-click on Windows. Here is how.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• A computer

1. In a text document you can, of course, select parts of the text by holding down the left mouse button and dragging to highlight the material you want to select.

2. Dragging can be tricky for people who have trouble with mouse control or if the material needs to be scrolled. Shift-clicking is easier. Click once to insert the cursor where you want to start the selection. Hold down the Shift key. Then find the end of the material you want to select. Click again with the mouse. Everything between the first click and the second click will be selected.

3. Files viewed as a list

   In Windows Explorer or the Finder you may want to select several files and move them from one folder to another or from the desktop into a folder. Make sure the View is set to show the files as a list. You can View the files as icons, but it's easier when you have a compact view as a list. Click the first file you want to move once to select it. Hold down the shift key. Click the last file you want to select. Every file between the two clicks will be selected.

4. Files selected in iTunes

   In applications like iTunes, where you want to create a playlist containing only certain songs, you must select the music you want and drag it into the playlist. Click the first song you want, then hold down the shift key and click the last song. All the songs between the two clicks are selected.

Tips & Warnings

• Shift-clicking selects everything from first to last. You can't omit certain bits from your selection using this method.